I find the Kindle’s startling resemblance to real ink on real paper really appealing, and it makes me want to get my Kindle out again. I’ve been all-iPad for awhile now, but under the microscope, it’s revealed for what it is: a very, very clever imposter.

To be clear: that’s totally okay. Sometimes imposters turn out to be an improvement on the real thing. (There’s a fable about that, right? If not: there should be.) (Oh, right.)

I’m also quite moved—no exaggeration—by the images of real ink at 400X magnification. Ah, right: it’s tree-parts down there. It’s a sticky black substance slathered across the fissures of a flattened web of fiber. It’s stuff. The words are the soul; the book is the body.

I am firmly convinced that paper is much like skin — those textures of really nice expensive papers, the way people touch and hold paper, the way it looks super up close, the organic-ness, etc. The body indeed!

These displays also relate to my favorite Robert Bringhurst quote, one that I like to argue with in my head: “The screen mimics the sky, not the earth. It bombards the eye with light instead of waiting to repay the gift of vision…We look to it for clues and revelations more than wisdom.” — so what happens when you have an e-ink screen that does not emit light the same way as a normal screen!